Some day I will pay for a jstor account. Might not be for a while yet though .

It depends what you're interested in! The general consensus on here was that the individual biographies weren't anything new or original for us. However the 2nd and 3rd chapter about military history (covering topics like the military market) was full of information I'd never seen before! I certainly think it's worth reading!

You can actually make an account there without paying! You have the option to read things online, or purchase and download the pdf when you make an account. You get 6 free online views per... week? I think.

I think something like the portion on military history could be of a lot of use to me! I'll probably have to look into that one then.

FYI: About 10 years ago or so when I was in China and had very limited internet and a lot of time, I hand-converted Rafe's Encyclopedia into a PDF file for easier searching for SimRTK stuff. Dong and I have copies of the pdf, and James has the pdf on site, although we agreed to only give links to the pdf if you actually bought the book. IIRC, I bought the book back when it was around $400 and its a great tool for summerization of up to 220 AD, as well as learning about the corruption that lead up to the rise of the Yellow Turbans (of note, I'm not sure how much, but Dong's writeup of Huangfu Song covers much of what Rafe wrote about him in the book, and there are other notable late-Han ministers and generals who get covered). If anyone can afford the money for the Encyclopedia, I'll link you the PDF which has everything but the maps IIRC.

I’m incredibly excited! Due to some very generous Christmas presents and my prime student discount on amazon I’ve just ordered RDC’s Fire Over Luoyang. It’s the first book by him I’ve been able to afford a physical copy of rather than just downloading pdfs that are in the public domain!

Just added another book to my collection and it's from my favorite author and historian; Howard L. Goodman. The book is The Orphan Ts’ao P’i, His Odd Poem, and Its Historiographic Frame which you can read for free online at JSTOR. HLG provides some interesting insight onto Cao Pi's life and even draws a fascinating comparison between he and Xian-di of Han. Highly suggested read for those with an interest in poetry and in Wei. Though be warned, there be Wade-Giles!

It includes a translation of A Poem That Concludes a Royal Command which was one I had never seen translated before. It was written by Cao Pi before he ascended the throne and became Wei Wen-di. Although I looked for this book more-so to get even more of an insight on Cao Pi's time as King of Wei, as it's often not discussed too much outside of Goodman's other work, Ts'ao Pi Transcendent. From a poetic aspect it's got something interesting, but the insight into the state of Wei at the time is what I most enjoyed.